Reviews

Tea connoisseurs are often hard on Teavana, accurately remarking that their teas are overpriced. I agree. However, they aren't the only company that is overpriced, nor are they the most overpriced, and I do think their teas are consistently high quality. The company has also gotten a bad rap for aggressive or pushy sales practices, some (like in the Willow Grove Park Mall store) bordering on illegal. And I do share these concerns.

This is the Teavana location that I've shopped at the most, which is why I'm reviewing it. How pushy are the people here? In my experience, although there is a bit of a "hard sell" by the salespeople, it's not quite as dirty or aggressive as some of the other stores. Perhaps I'm lucky, but I'd like to believe that this store is actually a little better on that count. Still, they could do better, and it's something I don't like about the chain as a whole.

The salespeople weren't particularly knowledgeable about tea, and did spout some not-so-truthful facts (this is another beef I have with Teavana). I'd rather they just shut up, or know their stuff if they want to talk. This may be a corporate problem...I suspect the salespeople are just repeating stuff they've been taught to repeat, and this doesn't make me feel super great about the company as a whole.

One thing I think Teavana does right, is storage: they keep the teas in metal tins, and they seem to have a high enough turnover that the tea always smells fresh. I've never had a problem buying something here and having it not be fresh.

Teavana is not my place of choice to buy loose-leaf tea, I usually get it online or at any of the ethnic grocery stores that sell black tea at very low prices. But I do think the tea here is consistently fresh and good, and it's not a bad choice. I'd nudge my rating up a star if the salespeople were a little more knowledgeable about tea and would refrain from spouting b.s. health "facts". That sort of rubs me the wrong way.

I also wish they wouldn't sweeten the samples that they give out, or at least that they would offer the choice of sweetened and unsweetened samples. I nearly always drink my tea without sugar or anything else in it, so the free samples that are always set out here, are a poor indicator of how the tea would actually taste if brewed to my liking.